


i thought i knew what love was (now i'm learning what is true)

by bright_ly



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, F/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, basically comparing their relationships, but only in the past, jack/katherine as well, these tags are going in the wrong order for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29375016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bright_ly/pseuds/bright_ly
Summary: "Sarah and Katherine, unlike Jack and Katherine, don’t believe they are soulmates. They don’t need to complete each other: no, these are two strong, happy,wholewomen. They don’t need anyone else to make them any of those things."Or, Sarah reflecting on why her relationship with Katherine works but Katherine and Jack didn't.
Relationships: Sarah Jacobs/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	i thought i knew what love was (now i'm learning what is true)

**Author's Note:**

> kind of short, but i hope you enjoy anyway :)
> 
> (also i think the tenses are messed up but i can't be bothered to fix it so deal)

From afar, Katherine Plumber and Jack Kelly are two very similar people. They are both outgoing, ambitious, intelligent. Natural leaders. 

They are jigsaw pieces that fit, the way a glove might fit a lady’s hand or the way a gentleman may fit into his specially-made shoes. They, to put it simply, seem made for each other. But, when you take the time to look a little closer, you begin to notice barely-visible cracks in the facade. The dents, viciously jamming against each other. The bumps that would otherwise be flat. The jagged edges to a puzzle which could, in another world, be smooth. The razor-sharp lines, scraping, sharpening, biding time until the inevitable lash out.

Sarah Jacobs has always been observant - more so than her siblings, anyway - and is one of the few who takes that time to dig a little deeper, and she sees the forced fit in a way that her brothers, with their biased world-views, cannot. And that is why she, unlike many of the others who know the couple in question, expects the breakup long before it comes - she is, in fact, shocked that it doesn’t come sooner. She is waiting, ready, when her best friend falls into her arms, sobbing, on a cold, lonely evening in the fall of 1900. 

“I’m sorry, Kathy. So, so, sorry.”

That night is one of tears. Perhaps the following day will be completed by anger, or regret, or forgiveness. Perhaps they will wake up in the morning and it will all have been a dream, or perhaps Jack will have run far, far away, just like he always said he would.

The possibilities are indeed endless.

“I’ll- I’ll kill him, if you want me to? Dave will kill him.”

Such thoughts cloud Sarah’s mind as she holds a grief-stricken Katherine, letting herself pretend, just for a moment, that-  
She won’t go there. She can’t go there. It’s not fair on Kath, or herself. Mainly herself, really.

Yet-

 _Oh,_ to stroke Kath’s hair like this when she isn’t in tears. To hold Kath like this when she’s not shaking with hurt and just-barely-hidden fury. To whisper comfort to Kath that doesn’t consist of:

“You’re going to be okay, Kathy. It’s all going to be okay. You- you never- you don’t need him, darling. It’s going to be okay.”

She’s lying, and it feels like a dagger striking her heart.

Because, really, how can everything be okay? How can _anything_ be okay?

Years later, when they’re both wine-drunk and giggling and in love, Sarah will recall this moment. She will remember the helplessness, the guilt, the hardly-disguised grief that ate away at her that winter. Katherine, when she imagines this moment, will recollect the striking realisation that haunted her soul for the months following her first heartbreak. She will remember the pain, the confusion, but also the sanding of her rough edges. The mending of her broken parts, dented by a relationship she’d pressured herself into.

Jack and Katherine had forced themselves to fit. In post-strike exhilaration and youthful foolishness, they had taken their pieces in the puzzle and thrust them together, despite the - if you only use a magnifier - obvious misfit. And, entirely unsurprisingly, they had ended in tears and hurt and anger.

Sarah and Katherine, unlike Jack and Katherine, don’t believe they are soulmates. They don’t need to complete each other: no, these are two strong, happy, _whole_ women. They don’t need anyone else to make them any of those things. 

Rather, they smooth each other’s rough edges. When Katherine would come home from work fuming at yet another idiot-man refusing her a story, Sarah would let her vent and then remind her that she was worth so much more than that man, that she was loved so much more than he ever would be, and then Katherine would laugh and hold Sarah close and they would kiss until idiot-reporter-men didn’t matter anymore. And when Sarah would crawl into bed in pieces after yet another dispute with her parents, Katherine would stick her back together again with whispered comforts and hardly-heard dreams of a world where they didn’t have to rearrange their apartment when there were guests; a world where they could hold hands in public; a world where they could wear trousers or short skirts without eyebrows and guns being raised.

It's a different kind of dream to Jack’s youthful visions of Santa Fe. It's a different kind of dream to Katherine’s journalistic ambitions, or Sarah’s outlandish dream of gaining fame. 

And yet, so many nights Sarah and Katherine spend dreaming of not hiding and of kissing in front of crowds and of marrying each other (properly, legally). So many days spent wishing, so many nights spent dreaming. So many wishes, so many dreams.

Only so many wishes can be granted. Only so many dreams can become reality. And yet, so many of theirs do. It’ll take months, years, decades, _centuries,_ but so many of their dreams become someone’s reality. And in the end, that’s more than enough.

Katherine and Jack had thrown themselves, recklessly, into a relationship.  
Katherine and Sarah took their time: slowly, steadily.

Katherine and Jack didn’t survive.  
Katherine and Sarah do.

**Author's Note:**

> moral of the story: be gay
> 
> 867 words according to google docs
> 
> find me on tumblr @chaoticallybright :)


End file.
